woe is my wireless conx! - belkin f5d6020


Forum: Networking
Topic: woe is my wireless conx! - belkin f5d6020
started by: gamma

Posted by gamma on Sep. 17 2006,20:06
Hi all,

New to DSL and linux...  Have just spent many hours trying to get my Belkin F5D6020 (ver. 1) driver up and running, to no avail.  Would seriously appreciate all help!

Will addend below results of various commands I've tried.  If any part of dmesg would help, let me know and i'll post it.  thanks for helping me getting my old satellite pro 420cdt (pentium 1) up and running...

-Guy

When I boot up it often hangs with a repeat of the error msg.:  eth0: error -5 [or -110] writing tx descriptor to Bap.  The card is supposed to work with the orinoco_cs and prism2_cs drivers.  lsmod yields (apart from other things)

Module          Size       Used by         Not tainted
orinoco_cs    4628      1
orinoco          35920    0   [orinoco_cs]

prism2_cs isn't listed.  ifconfig yields

eth0  Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:30:BD:60:EO:E4
        inet addr:192.168.0.8  Bcase:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
        UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
        RX packets:16  errors:0  dropped:0  overruns:0  frame:0
        TX packets:3  errors:824428  dropped:0  overruns:0  carrier:0
        collisions:0  txqueuelen:1000
        RX bytes:2238 (2.1 KiB)  TX bytes:1684 (1.6 KiB)
        Interrupt:3  Base address:0x100

lo      Link encap:Local Loopback
        inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
        UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
        RX packets:8  errors:0  dropped:0  overruns:0  frame:0
        TX packets:8  errors:0  dropped:0  overruns:0  carrier:0
        collisions:0  txqueuelen:0
        RX bytes:646 (646.0 B)  TX bytes:646 (646.0 B)

iwconfig gives:

lo      no wireless connections

eth0  IEEE 802.11-DS  Nickname:"box"
        Mode:Managed  TX-Power=15 dBm
        RTS thr:off
        Encryption key:off

cardctl ident gives:

Socket 0:
 no product info available
Socket 1:
 product info:  "Belkin", 11Mbps Wireless Notebook Network Adapter", "Version 01.02", ""
 manfid: 0x0156, 0x0002
 function: 6 (network)

and my /etc/network/interfaces right now says:

auto lo eth0
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet dhcp
wireless_mode managed
wireless_essid First Floor
wireless_channel 6
wireless_key
auto wlan0

Posted by Wittfella on Sep. 18 2006,15:26
G'Day,

Are you using ndiswrapper?
If so what does "ndiswrapper - l" say? It should say "hardware present" if the driver is good.

You could try the command "lspci" for the card info, and then check you have the correct driver here
< ndiswrapper driver list >

Posted by gamma on Sep. 18 2006,16:34
G'day and thanks for helping out.  Actually, I haven't been using ndiswrapper (the card seems to have worked for other folks with the drivers mentioned above without it), but at this point it's worth a try.  Will download the drivers mentioned in the list you linked to and post the results.

I haven't looked into this, but the results of the commands you suggested make me fear that there's a more basic problem here.

sudo ndiswrapper -l gives:

pcilib: Cannot open /proc/bus/pci
lspci: Cannot find any working access method.
No drivers installed

Thanks again.  Back soon with an update.

Posted by gamma on Sep. 18 2006,21:54
hi again,

I've installed the windows driver (net8180) recommended for my card using ndiswrapper.

Just to make sure I got this right...  I changed directory to where the .inf and .sys files were.  Then "ndiswrapper -i NET8180.INF" to which it responded "Installing net8180."  Then I issued "modprobe ndiswrapper".

Now when I type "ndiswrapper -l" I still get the same two error msgs. as before (about pcilib and lspci), but it then says:

Installed drivers:
net8180    driver installed

The light on the card generally is flashing, but sometimes it will stay lit (which makes me wonder, because that's what it does when it's connected).

It still does not load the driver at bootup (just the ones already installed 'modprobe orinoco' and 'modprobe orinoco_cs').  Then the msg:
cardmgr[53]:  + /sbin/ifup eth0
ifup: Ignoring unknown interface eth0

By the time I get to the login, it's begun the error msgs. that hang the system:  In trying to load the Hermes module, the eth0 error repeats and prevents me from logging in.  (At which point, I need to manually power off, remove the pcmcia card and boot up again.)  Does it not seem like the first step should be to make the system not attempt to load Hermes?

Hermes was the first module listed in /etc/pcmcia/config for the "orinoco_cs" device (the other two are orinoco and orinoco_cs modules, which are supposed to work with this card), so I deleted it to see whether it would help.  I still get the error msg. Is there some other way to block hermes, but let it try to use one of the other modules?

Thanks.  Shooting in the dark here, I know!

Posted by roberts on Sep. 18 2006,23:38
From your first post...
iwconfig shows eth0 as the wireless device.
ifconfig shows that you have an IP.
So far that seems normal.

Are you trying to use a WEP key?

Posted by gamma on Sep. 19 2006,01:32
Thanks for replying...  As for the WEP key, no, we don't use one for our router.  If there are other commands I can issue that will help troubleshoot this, just say the word.  I'm not sure that I properly configured everything through the control panel, so if it looks like I've made a basic configuration mistake, I probably have...  Any help or pointers there would be appreciated!  Apart from that, there's of course still the issue that I can't actually boot the computer with my wifi card inserted, because it hangs with that eth0 msg (I'm assuming that's a config problem beyond the control panel, no?).  Thanks guys for helping out with this.
Posted by roberts on Sep. 19 2006,02:59
Make sure you boot with nodhcp as this will cause a hang because pump is trying to fetch an ip for eth0 before you ready, e.g, sid etc.

Or if you forget to use nodhcp then as root
# pkill pump

This will free up eth0 and allow you to set wireless parameters and then when you are ready

# pump -i eth0

Posted by gamma on Sep. 19 2006,04:43
wow, thanks so much!  the kernel boot option "nodhcp" solves the first problem of the eth0 error that hangs the system at startup.  i put that in my grub menu.lst so that's done.

unfortunately, "pump -i eth0" returned with "Operation failed."  Any other suggestions?  thanks again!

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